Weird question about Canadians
 

So, this might sound a bit weird but has anyone experienced Canadians copying them? I have experienced it A LOT. From one "friend" who's wedding was a carbon copy of ours -same venue, colour scheme even down to asking for the same barman - to another friend dressing her husband in the same style of clothes as my husband!

Then there's the copying of patter such as "cheers", "wanker" etc Makes me cringe!

Would be interesting to know if anyone else has come across this or if it's just the people that I mix with. Thanks in advance for your replies :thumbsup:

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Nope

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Are you sure they are not just taking the piss out of you? My mates call me a 'bloody wanker' from time to time.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Just Canadian family members.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

I had a friend in the UK who decorated her living room with the same colour/sofa etc as mine. I hadn’t noticed, but she commented. My OH is prone to picking up accents. When we first came over here I spent too much time with elementary school teachers, and found myself saying ‘good job’ and ‘awesome!’. People pick things up, even if they don’t want to. And very few people have original ideas, even in such hotbeds of ‘novelty’ as weddings. Pinterest tells us that.

My husband dresses like someone wdgaf about clothes. Looking around I see that this is fairly common in middle-aged men. Or perhaps they are all copying him?

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Nope, its neither of the above. Its just you.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

This is common among the tri-hard immigrants where I work. There are very few cradle Canadians and a couple of vocal Brits (that is, me and a Londoner of Indian parentage). There are lots of people who are marginally literate in English. The keener immigrants adopt the phrases they hear and so pepper their business speak with rhyming slang circa 1985, "cheers" and "yiddo!". I am certain that they don't know the latter as anything but an expression of enthusiasm so one might say "I was reaching out and stakeholder was agreeing with proposal, yiddo!".

The Canadians don't do this. They say "literally" to mean "figuratively" and "inherently" to mean "um".

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

No, although I do have a few friends who like to extract the urine by immitating the way I talk (or trying to) sometimes!

:)

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Ha! My 8 year old daughter (born here) and her friends do the same.;)

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

My Canadian stepson often says 'Bloody' which he got from me.

It sounds really weird coming from someone who often swears like he's in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

I see this all the time with our neighbours (who we do allow into our house).

An example here is decor. We (OK, she) have a style. We go for multiples. A big, bold picture, say of poppies. We get two of them and hang them next to each other. Neighbours have started doing the same. Ditto the garden. If we do something, it will happen elsewhere on the street.

Just a lack of imagination, I guess.

The thing that really racks me off is the post-event offer of help. I do something and then tell someone who says "I was going to help you with that".

A bit late. It's done but I seem now to owe you a favour.

The really annoying bit is the confusion between loan and gift. I no longer lend things to people because I know I'll never see them again. My next-door neighbour still has a book I lent her over a decade ago.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Oh god this could so be me. A friend once lent me a dvd. I don't think I asked, she just thought I would like it. We didn't get around to watching it for a while, and I felt I couldn't give it back without having watched it. Somehow the fact that I 'had' to watch it made it so much more difficult to get round to. We had it for ages. I was put off watching it by the thought of the embarrassment of returning it.

Eventually we watched it and returned it, but I still have never watched any others in the (potc) franchise as just thinking about this makes me cringe. I am not nearly as bonkers as this makes me sound. Honestly. :o

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

I lent a book to a Canadian colleague once and when I asked for it back he said sure. It took many many months or re-asking to get it back, and the end I feel like he might have on-lent it, and had to retrieve it. At the time I was annoyed (because it was part of my "collection") but in retrospect I think I might have been a bit anal about it. Dunno. But in general I think unless is specifically gifted, the borrower should return it.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

I would certainly like to see my skunk trap returned. Ideally without a skunk.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

When it comes to Canadians there is no such thing as a "weird" or "stupid" question.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

My Canadian stepson uses bloody, wanker, bollocks, twat and a few others.

I have no idea where he got that from. Youtube maybe.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Not another whinge about abuse on the homefront ! ;);)

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

No.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

I must admit to a similar annoyance when I went to a wedding recently and it was almost a carbon copy of ours... a church service in which they blatantly copied our promises to love each other till death do us part, and they even had the cheek to copy what we were wearing - a kilt for me and an ivory dress for the woman. To add insult to injury, they then replicated our hosting of drinks and a meal in a local hotel, followed by a band and a disco until the early hours.

The unimaginative bastards.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

Canadians pick up bits of language that they find different like Magpies, but, certainly here in my bit, it's because they haven't got a huge vocabulary, and I think it's quite complimentary (my son's friends all now refer to School Crossing people as Lolipop men or women, and, oddly, everyone in my office finds the term "a bit cross" for less than furious but more than irritated, to be wonderful and use it liberally) it's just that they haven't been exposed to much change.

Atlantic Canada is now getting slightly more outsiders coming, but has remained relatively untouched socially for a long time and it's very much affected the spoken word here, people don't 'play' with language in the same way that they do in more changing societies (even more so when you come to the French language - but that's a whole different brouhaha ;) ) I really miss the richness and fun of British language at it's best, London had such a diverse set of people coming and going from so many backgrounds that the linguistic soup changed virtually daily - which must be going on in the GTA or Vancouver too where you have a larger population?

Surely the internet now means we all copy each other doesn't it? If we fancy a bit of Bollywood Bling or Pastoral whatever, at the push of a button Pinterest is all over it. Canadians though, I think, are generally conservative, they don't want to go out on a limb to be different, so if you have done something nice with your house and garden, or wedding - it's going to be copied, so enjoy it OP it makes you a fashionista! Although that word is probably very much not in vogue now.

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

...but I bet they'd be miffed to read that last line. ;)

Re: Weird question about Canadians
 

:rofl:

My wife adopted a pronounced "not my cup of tea" (an expression I don't think I ever used) after my complaints that her "tastes like shit (or dog's vomit) were somewhat over the top and insulting. :lol: